


Behind the Eight Ball

by ishtarelisheba



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 1920s, Bootlegging AU, F/M, Rumbelle Christmas in July, Rumbelle Christmas in July 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-13 23:38:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15375921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: Out doing a bit of upkeep on his moonshine operation, Ezra Gold happens across a familiar car and decides to pursue, figuring he might be able to use what he finds for his own ends. It never hurts to know a politician's dirty little secrets, after all. The fellow bootlegger he finds isn't exactly the one he expected, however, and his discovery manages to turn all manner of things on their heads.





	Behind the Eight Ball

**Author's Note:**

> For Joylee, who provided the prompt: books, child(ren), and Rumple's Aunts. Happy RCIJ! :D

Pass it by a half mile, make doubly certain no one followed, turn around and zip out of sight before God or cops could clap eyes on him. He went about sneaking down each narrow dirt backroad just the same. Twice a week for six years, though? It was second nature to Ezra Gold. He could’ve done it blind. Very nearly had a time or three, if cut lights counted.

His third check-in was ticking along like a Swiss clock. Jefferson had a batch near the end of its second distillation, near ready for the charcoal, and a truck was being loaded down for the night’s delivery. When he looked in on David, they had a batch coming out of aging barrels and going into bottles in a back room. The only division seeing problems was Mal’s. She had a leaking coil that needed soldering, but it was a quick fix, back in business before dark.

It might’ve seemed a good deal of trouble from an outside view, looking in so often, managing down to the minutiae even now. The stills were more than simply his livelihood, however. Far more than money for money’s sake or sticking it to a government that presumed to tell anyone what they could put in their mouths. 

Ezra pulled back onto the paved road, heading toward town. He’d come home from the war with a twisted leg and rumors following him close behind, both making it nigh impossible to find a job decent enough to support his family. His son had been six months old, first time he laid eyes on him. He’d missed everything save the conception. From the instant he held his son in his arms, though, life had been about that boy.

Prohibition brought with it a self-righteous mob marching through town with axes aimed at every jug and barrel of alcohol deigning to exist therein. He’d seen an opportunity. An opportunity to make money, to make life better for Bailey. He refused to allow his son to grow up as terribly hard as he had, in such grinding poverty. Ezra had made up his mind as he ordered that first copper boiler. Whatever it took, he could do more for his son.

His first still had been operated out of Auntie Bea and Auntie Saskia’s ‘tool shed’ behind the house. It was begun with their support - both in approval and financial senses - and he made certain they reaped the benefits, as well. Bae had been a tot that they had to pry from his hip so he could look after the small enterprise. 

Almost from the beginning, he’d made quite a pretty penny off his whiskey. Within that first year, he had been able to upgrade the entire apparatus and move it into a secure cabin deep in the forest on Storybrooke’s outskirts. It was the same year that he and Bae ended up on their own. Over the course of the second year, he was able to set up a second still, and the business had only continued to grow from there. 

One of the first things he had thrown moonshine money at when it began stacking up above their necessities, he’d invested in a malt house. It only made sense. Shipping in malted barley by the truckload for his stills was an unnecessary risk, but malting his own made all manner of things easier. The malt house quickly turned into his façade for the money he had begun making hand over fist. Even the keenest eye would find his books in order. After all, he _did_ ship malt all over the country… to be turned into powder for soda shops.

Eight years in, Weaver’s Own was the best bootleg whiskey on the east coast, and he was proud of his wee criminal empire, such as it was. He and Bae lived in comfort. They had more money than they knew what to do with. It had been a few years past that he’d built a fine house on a sizable estate at the edge of the town proper and hired enough help to take care of it. 

Bae had tutors, despite his son’s sentiment that time spent with them would be better utilized left to his own devices, and Ezra was hell bent on getting the boy into a good school. He had aspirations for Bae. The fortune he amassed was meant to ensure that those aspirations came to pass. Money truly would buy almost anything. He had limped himself up the social ladder so that his son wouldn’t have to - so that they would be firmly established by the time Bae was ready to create a life of his own, so that no one would ever dare question his boy’s worth.

Going at a speed that was frankly unwise - leastways while not being pursued - he took a curve and only saved himself from swiping the side of Tin Lizzie racing the opposite way thanks to quick reflexes. He screeched to a halt in the middle of the road.

“Blazing blue hell,” he muttered to himself, whipping a look over his shoulder. 

He _knew_ that motor. Everyone in town bloody well knew it. And he’d seen it more than once on this stretch of road where no one went who was up to any good, doing the particular manner of ins-and-outs that he was familiar with. For months, he had privately enjoyed the irony. Mayor Moe French, the man who fought viciously in favor of prohibition and won his seat by it, eating off both sides of the table, running a still of his own.

A half second more of thought and Ezra turned around to follow. It couldn’t hurt to know where the mayor’s secret lay. One never knew when one might need something in a back pocket. He drove until he found a backroad with a lingering cloud of dust at its mouth, and he made his way more slowly down it.

When he saw more sunlight than leaves, he slowed to a roll, attempting to make as little noise as possible. No sense in alerting the pursued. The glade he approached was so deep in the forest he’d begun to wonder if he had been misdirected by the time he was near enough to get out and walk with his cane. It was a choice spot for secret-hiding, he had to admit. There was a cabin so new that he could almost smell the sawdust, small enough it might just fit a starter still.

He kept out of line from the single window, sneaking up from one side. Before he could hazard a peek through the glass, he heard humming. 

Now, if that was Moe French’s voice, there was a bigger secret in Storybrooke than the mayor making a business of bootlegging. Unable to keep from looking in upon that dawn of understanding, he caught a slip of a girl hefting a large jug up from beneath the table. She set it next to an impressive little still and climbed up on the waiting step stool, setting a large sieve on top of the boiler before lifting the jug again to pour its contents in. A number of bottles sat by on the table’s other end, already filled and labeled, ready to go.

Immediately he recognized the blue labels with their bundles of three unbloomed red roses. So that was it, then. It was the younger and far prettier French who’d set herself up moonshining. Not feeling like tempting fate on being seen, he made his way back down to his car. Ezra grinned to himself as he slowly backed down the path until he found a place wide enough to turn around.

Well. That was a horse of an _entirely_ different color.

~~ooOoo~~

Regina set her coffee cup down hard. “If he’s not here in five minutes-”

“You won’t do anything, because it would cost too much to train someone new,” Mal said, replacing the empty cup with a fresh one as she sat next to her girl. “Unclench, my dear. We’re not hurting for time.”

Her speakeasy was quiet, as mid-mornings in such establishments tended to be, and as always it was the venue for their weekly chat about goings-on in their area of things. Liquor, money, seedy underbellies, and the more useful gossip grinding through town.

“It’s barely a business meeting,” Jefferson drawled. He slid one leg up to cross over the other and watched as the spinning silver dollar in front of him held its speed for a moment. Licking his index finger, he stroked it across the opposite palm as though turning a page. “Shall I read the last meeting’s minutes? How many bottles, how much time, orders, smuggling in of ingredients and equipment, blah, blah.”

Ezra shot him a smirk. “How eloquent.”

“I listen, I learn, ‘my dear,’” imitated Jefferson with a wag of his head, clearly amused with himself. There was a thump from beneath the table and he gave Regina a glare. “Ow.”

“Now, now, children,” Ezra murmured just about the time David Nolan at last walked in. 

Crossing her arms over her middle, Regina leaned back in a show of pique. “Have that much trouble getting the little woman’s fangs out of you this morning?”

Ezra pushed a chair away from the table with the handle of his cane. He very much enjoyed having young David in his employ, and not only because the boy was loyal and knew his moonshine. David’s background was similar to his own, though an ocean away. The boy had grown up poor with only a mother, fought his way up, and was unafraid to get his hands dirty when necessary. He had a daughter just about Bae’s age, as well. And Ezra just couldn’t help reveling in the irony of David’s wife being somewhat of a nabob in town who had rabidly backed the Eighteenth. 

David was never late, though. The boy pomaded his hair at six thirty-seven every morning. His punctuality was an appreciated trait.

“Dragging up the rear a bit, aren’t you?” Ezra asked rather pointedly.

“You’ll never believe what I stumbled into hearing.” Tossing his cap down on the table, David grabbed the offered chair and turned it around to park himself astride it. “I almost turned a corner right into a pair of off-duty coppers outside of the hardware store. Apparently Nottingham-”

“Nottingham?” Mal’s lip curled at such a volume of distaste that her expression practically screamed across the table.

“He’s given the sheriff’s department some kind of tip about somebody’s still.” David cast a look around the rest. “Cops are getting ready. I went back to walk by and they were gearing themselves up. Nottingham was still there jawing at them.”

“Not any of ours, is it?” Regina asked, her arms slipping open.

Ezra tilted his head back, building a silent steam of ire. Now, why would that bastard rat on anyone, when half the time he was hiding from the sheriff, himself?

“Not unless he’s propositioned any of us lately and gotten an icy mitt.” David snorted, eyeing across at Jefferson’s coffee. “He popped off something about, ‘you’d think they’d learn by now, ‘no’ ain’t a word Keith Nottingham takes.’”

 _Fuck._ Ezra realized all at once just who Nottingham was trying to hurt.

He took his hat from the table and his cane from its lean against the edge. “I’ve forgotten an appointment. My sincere apologies. David, you’ll fill me in?” he said, already hurrying toward the door.

“Yeah, sure,” David replied in confusion after him.

Regina directed a fiercely indignant sound in the direction of his hasty exit. “Gold! Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Keith Nottingham, that sorry excuse for barn muck, had been after Belle French for years. Longer than could be considered decent. Every dinner party, every charity function Ezra attended, he’d witnessed her being forced to make genteel excuses to escape the man. And now Nottingham had tipped the cops off to the girl’s stillhouse out of spite. Ezra felt a violent urge to hunt the twirp down and cuff him ’round the head with his cane. But he didn’t have the time. He would deal with the miscreant in an eventual manner, but just now… 

He hoofed it as quickly as he could into the alleyway and slid into the driver’s seat of his car. It was all he could do to hold himself back to a sane speed, and he only managed until he was to the forest’s edge. There he gunned it as hard as he could, taking the engine to every bit of its clocked 160.

The wheels threw dust and gravel into the air behind him as he turned onto the road he’d followed her down only days before, picking up speed again until he had to grind to a halt in front of her cabin. She flung the door open and stared out at him with a look of horror on her face. Leaving the engine running, he barely had a foot on the ground when she backpedaled, slamming the door shut again.

“Miss French,” he greeted from the outside before forcing his shoulder into the cabin door. They didn’t have time for this. It popped easily open. “You’ll need to come with me.”

“Pound sand!” she squawked, putting the table full of bottles and still between him and herself.

He saw a flash of recognition in her eyes when she looked at him with more than fear at being walked in on. The defense in her shoulders dropped.

“Mr. Gold?” Tension returned to her posture. “What are you doing here?”

“You need to leave,” he told her as he started around the end of the table.

She continued around the other side. “What are you talking about?”

“The police are on their way, and you, Miss French, shouldn’t be here when they arrive.”

The girl obviously wasn’t hearing him. She went on trying to edge toward the door. When she finally decided to make a break, the narrow room meant it was nothing for him to stop her from darting out the door and right into handcuffs by bringing his cane up in front of her. The end thumped against the cabin wall.

He huffed out a breath. This was not going as well as he envisioned. “You’ll thank me when you haven’t been clapped into a set of steel bracelets,” he told her, reaching out to wrap a hand around her arm and hoping to get her attention. 

She blinked at him. “What?”

“You’ve been ratted out,” Ezra clarified. “Nottingham’s sold you to the cops.”

 _“Keith?_ How did he know where-” Belle looked up at him, and suddenly an interesting combination of bewilderment and anger converged on her face. “How did _you_ know where I am?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You aren’t that difficult to follow, as it turns out.” 

Belle pulled her arm away and stamped her foot, turning to look around the inside of the cabin in desperation. There was a table beneath the window full of open books. He could tell at a glance that they were turned to recipes, research, engineering. She had boxes of supplies, bottles ready to deliver, her still dripping away into a glass jug. He understood her hesitation, but it wasn’t worth her freedom.

“Listen!” he said, and he went silent.

They stared at one another. A far off cry of police sirens at last made it through her thick skull, and her eyes went wide.

“Oh, hell.” She finally acquired an appropriate look of panic. Turning, Belle began slamming books shut two at a time, piling them into her arms. “I sent Ruby in the flivver to fetch wax!”

“I’ll take care of it.” Flustered, he reached for her again. “There’s no time for that!”

“Help me? Please?” she asked, thrusting her armload of books at him.

He cradled them against his chest as she grabbed up more. “Miss French, we have to go. _Now.”_

“Okay, okay! All right!” Belle glanced around one more time before hurrying out the door ahead of him. She screeched to a halt so fast upon seeing the Model J that he almost stumbled over her. “Holy cats.”

“Be impressed from inside the car, hm?” Ezra suggested, giving a nudge to her arm to get her moving.

She trotted around to the passenger side, leaning into the window to put her books on the seat. He had the car in reverse before she had the passenger door closed, and she reached for her books as they slid. With a neat turn in the small clearing in front of the cabin and a change of gear, he rocketed back toward the main road, and the aircraft engine fitted under the hood roared. 

They’d barely hit the blacktop when a cop car rounded the distant curve. Bushwah like this was precisely the reason he kept the Model J out of sight save for business. If the cops caught a glimpse, it didn’t matter a lick - he was faster and every soul that knew the car belonged to him was wiser than to breathe a word.

“Suppose we’ll go the long way around, then,” he muttered.

Ezra took advantage of the immense benefits of a one-brake wheel. The car turned, slinging around on a dime to fly right back down the opposite lane and hardly losing speed as it did. Beside him, Belle cried out in shock, looking first at him and then twisting in her seat to look behind them. Pieces of her dark auburn hair liberated themselves from the roll around the back of her neck to whip wild in the wind. 

“They’re falling back!” she shouted, her words snatched away as soon as they came out of her mouth.

He took them down a few miles until he found a backroad he knew to have a loop reaching around the back of town. It was a short dash from there to civilization, such as it was. Shops and houses flew by in streaks of color as they passed.

“Be ready!” he yelled over the sound of the engine. “Be ready to _run_ when I stop!”

She gave him a wide-eyed stare. _“What?”_

“Hold on!”

To her credit, Belle immediately grabbed hold of the door with one arm and the back of the seat with the other, only somewhat sliding into the footwell when he careened to a halt up in front of a tall pink Victorian. He reached across to pull the handle and throw her door open, putting a hand on her shoulder to bodily turn her toward it.

“Go!” he said. “Inside!”

She half climbed, half fell from the car, recovering herself quickly, and tore up the front steps. The door opened before she hit the porch, and he was gone again before she reached it, letting the car door slam itself shut.

He parked in back. His Duesenberg Model J hid in the tool shed where he once cooked. It was an expensive motor to hide in such a way, particularly with his improvements. His daily car was a far less costly but pretty red Dorris that was parked in front of the house and served his purposes just fine. 

Chaining the shed door, he let himself into the kitchen through the back. He was met by a pair of children, one calling out to him, “Papa!” and the other launching herself into his arms. 

“You’ve brought us another stray, then?” Auntie Bea asked as he leaned to drop a kiss on her age-creased cheek.

He grinned, bouncing the little girl who clung to the shoulder of his coat so that he could settle her on his hip, and he rested a hand on top of Bae’s head. “Would you complain if I had?”

Auntie Saskia tapped her cheek expectantly until he dropped a kiss there, as well. “I like her. She’s fiery.”

“You can’t tell how much fire she’s got in her,” Bea said. “Poor thing is shaking fit to churn butter.”

Saskia gave him a wink. “Nonsense. You can always tell fire.”

“Well, your bit of fire is in the good parlor,” Bea told Ezra. “I sent Dove in with a cup of tea.”

“Thank you, Auntie,” he said, and he carried wee Alice through with him.

Bailey stayed close, aware that _something_ had happened. “Okay, Papa?” he asked.

“Right as rain, love,” Ezra told him with a smile. He looked to Dove as they stepped into the company parlor and spoke quietly to the large man. “Could you do a quick run to the grocer’s and make certain a Miss Ruby Lucas knows to go home rather than back out?”

“Yes, sir,” Dove rumbled, giving him a nod before lumbering out into the hallway.

He employed Ifan Dove as a butler in his Aunties’ home, though the position was in name only. The great man had no experience in butlering, and that was just fine with both women, who were accustomed to taking care of themselves, thank you very much. In muscle and protection, however, he had some exceptional proficiency. Dove kept an eye on his Aunties and the children, when they were there. He’d been Ezra’s first hire, as far as help went.

“Papa, I found the Exeter prospectus you left on my dresser,” Bae told his father with an impressive amount of disapproval for a boy having barely seen ten years.

“Not the time,” Ezra murmured. Belle sat just across the room on the sofa, and now was not the moment for yet another school discussion.

The boy’s mouth quirked to one side. “It found its way into the garbage.”

“Bailey…” he said with gentle exasperation.

“Papa, you’re not in trouble, are you?” Bae fretted, looking from his father to Belle and back again.

“Certainly not.” Ezra gave his son’s hair a ruffle. “Only helping to keep someone else out of it.”

Bae nodded, and the way he didn’t so much as attempt to duck out from under his father’s hand went farther to show his concern than his sharp questions.

“Miss French, this is my son, Bailey,” he introduced, drawing her attention. “And this little bird is Alice Jones, my ward.”

She nodded, smiling politely. “Hello there.”

The girl looked out of place in the dated surroundings. His Aunties, a pair of ladies made by an era past, were perfectly at home there. Belle, on the other hand, in her lounge trousers and rosy lipstick, was a beautiful note of discord despite her carefully crossed ankles. 

“All right,” Auntie Bea said by way of inserting herself into the room. “Come on, darlings, let’s have a nibble while the adults talk. I believe Sass has made some of her famous double chocolate biscuits.”

She took Alice easily from Ezra’s arms, and Bae looked back at his father before he was bustled out. Ezra removed his coat and hat before making his way over to place himself in the leggy armchair nearest his unexpected guest. He sat quietly, waiting until she was over the shock of being found out and whisked away under hot pursuit.

Belle started a bit, frowning at something over her shoulder, and it took him a second to realize she’d been startled by one of her own curls on her neck. It seemed she had only just discovered the state of dishevelment that she was in. She put her teacup down and sighed, trying to smooth her hair back into its roll, tucking in and repinning. Ezra looked politely away and pretended not to notice.

“I’m going to guess you set up your still… eight months ago, roundabouts. Aye?” he asked when she picked up her tea again.

She flicked a look at him. “Something like that. How did you figure it?”

Ezra gave her a knowing smile in return, settling back in his chair. “That’s around the first time I recall seeing Rosebud Gin in the speakeasies, I believe. It’s spread like wildfire.”

“People do seem to have taken a liking to it,” she agreed.

“Rose petals in with the juniper berries. Clever.” He caught a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth that he could see. “What made you think of it?”

She shrugged, taking a sip of tea. “I happen to like roses.”

“And a secret ingredient or two, I expect.”

“Maybe so.”

“To make it more difficult to imitate.”

“Perhaps,” she allowed, hiding her widening smile behind the rim of her cup.

“So you have a head for marketing,” he praised, unfortunately following it up with, “Where on earth is your head for finances?”

Belle looked at him straight on, then. _“Pardon_ me?”

“You undersell by quite a margin, Miss French.”

“No. I ask what the market will allow.”

“Three bucks a bottle?” He clucked his tongue. “You could charge five and no one would bat an eye.”

Belle shook her head. “Nobody is going to pay five dollars a bottle for my bootleg gin, Mr. Gold. I would rather make more modest earnings than have people overlook it entirely for being too dear.”

“You’ve underestimated yourself rather severely,” Ezra cautioned, but he let go of the argument. “Will you think about it, at least?”

“I’ll consider,” she agreed, though she sounded as if her answer were more for sake of quieting him on the subject.

“I do want to warn you against going back. Not until I can accompany.” He hoped he didn’t seem to be propositioning something. “What I mean is, it’ll be watched for a while, your spot there.”

She frowned down into her half empty cup. After a moment, she nodded. “I’ll have to rebuild elsewhere. But I need to go have a look when I can.”

“You really ought to quit the spot entirely, Miss French. Don’t set foot on it again, if you want to be safe.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, call me Belle. Once you’ve rolled up half the pavement in town from the view of someone’s getaway car, first names should be a given.”

A smile tugged at one side of his mouth. “Belle. Then you’ll call me Ezra.

“Just fine by me.” She smiled over at him in return.

“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” Ezra invited. “The children and I eat with the Aunties on Mondays, anyway. Another place to set is no hardship.”

For a few moments, she appeared conflicted. “I don’t know… I’m meant to be home by my own dinnertime.” 

From just out in the hallway, Auntie Saskia piped up. “We’ll be having beef roast with potatoes and turnips, and a walnut pie with ice cream. You’ll stay now, won’t you?”

Ezra’s ears warmed a little, which they absolutely should have been past doing at his age.

With a soft laugh, Belle looked over at him, and she relaxed a tad. “Yes, ma’am. I suppose I’ll stay, at that.”

~~ooOoo~~

The next fortnight was the longest of Ezra’s life, and it ate him up a bit that it was so. He found himself _wanting_ to see Belle French. It had been easy to deny an affection for her while she stayed out of what could loosely be described as his usual ‘social circle,’ while he only saw her once or twice a month in the company of a dozen others. Admiring her from a distance had worked for years now. It could easily have lasted until he died, he figured.

If there was a single thing he did not need in his life, it was the utter and inescapable hell of unrequited affection. Even Bae seemed to have caught him in his crush, asking whether they would see her again. He and his son were currently in a standoff consisting of squabbles about boarding school versus disarming questions about Miss French that caused him to derail from all train of thought. 

When he was certain that the sheriff’s office had given up stalking her bit of earth out in the forest for other pursuits, he had Dove deliver a message. She met him out back of Mal’s Blind Dragon in her father’s sky blue Tin Lizzie the next morning. With a hop into his car, he finally took her back out to her cabin to have a look.

They were met with scorched earth. Ashes, char, everything burnt to a cinder. The cops had destroyed her entire operation. Blown it sky high. It was a wonder they hadn’t heard it clear from one end of Storybrooke to the other.

Belle groaned with despair, sitting quiet and still in his passenger seat for a few minutes before she got slowly out of the car.

“Careful,” he told her as she stepped away.

Leaving the engine running, Ezra got out after her. He stood back to give her space. None of his stillhouses had ever been destroyed, but he could imagine how devastating it might be, especially when one was only starting out. 

She walked around in the wreckage, poking through it with a stick as though she searched. Once or twice she squatted down to peer at something before moving on. Eventually, she dropped the stick aside and returned to where he stood, soot smudging her face and hands.

Belle leaned against the hood of the car, quiet for a little longer. “Thank you for bringing me out. I was a little nervous about being seen in a motor that could be traced back.”

“No trouble at all.” He waved away her thanks. “What’ll you do, then?”

“Rebuild,” she answered right away. “It’s all I can do. Find a new place, rebuild.”

He hummed. “And what if I had an alternative?”

She shifted a look to him from the corner of her eye. “Alternative?”

“I propose that we go into business together. In a manner,” he offered.

Belle scoffed. “You don’t need me. At all. It’s not as if I’d make you more money.”

“That isn’t my point at all.” He should have expected her to assume such. His reputation was far-reaching; he’d crafted it that way. “I want to help you. If you throw in with me-”

“I don’t want to work _for_ anybody. Not in this business,” she said, and she reeled back a little.

Ezra sighed, pulling a bit of a face. “I never said you’d be working for me. I would give you space and means to acquire your supplies - far more easily, in fact. You can hire who you wish, do things your own way. I would simply be providing a- a safer site for your work. Protection. So that you’ll no longer be quite so vulnerable to police intervention. Call it going into business adjacently.”

“Adjacently, huh?” Her lips pressed together with a twitch that threatened to smile. 

“With an additional profit of flouting your father’s authority,” he added under the intention of tempting her further.

“Flouting my father’s authority…” 

“You might say something that isn’t repeating me in that tickled tone.”

“Yeah, well, nobody can say you’re not insightful, can they?” She chewed at her bottom lip, considering him. “I’ll… admit. Undercutting my father’s efforts with the amendment is some _fun_ icing on the cake. But it isn’t why I’m doing this.”

That was quite the surprise. “No?”

“Nope.”

“May I ask, then, why? Why risk it?”

Belle grinned and turned to lean her backside on his car hood. “I’ve wanted to go to college since I knew what college was, and my father has discouraged it as long as he’s known what I wanted.” She fidgeted, brushing ineffectually at the soot on her hands. “Now, I haven’t had a bad education. I had some great tutors that indulged me. And he forked out so I could go to Vidamanette for finishing.”

“You want more,” Ezra said gently, understanding. 

“My father refuses to pay for college. He says I’m too forward, anyway, and it’ll give me ideas.” She laughed bitterly. “That’s the entire _point._ He just won’t pay so I’ll be forced to ‘settle down,’ though.”

So that’d be why she jumped feet first into bootlegging. Ezra felt every hope of holding onto some distance in the situation fizzling away. “How much have you saved?”

She raised her eyebrows, the rest of her expression filled with dismay when she looked over at him. “Not enough.”

“Well,” he began, turning to face her. He leaned both hands on the handle of his cane. “You do have choices. Hunt down another spot, dip into your savings to build another stillhouse and go through the entire rigmarole of setting up. You might have it back underway next month. _Or_ you could take me up on my offer and be cooking again in three days.”

“There are choices that aren’t really choices.”

“Mm.”

“Three days?” she replied, her interest clearly piqued. “Really?”

“Anything you require that I don’t already have set by, I can find before the end of the day,” he promised her. “All I need is a list.”

“Why would you do this?” Belle shook her head in wonder. 

He shrugged a shoulder dismissively. “I daresay I like your father even less than you do.”

“That’s the only reason?” she asked, cocking her head to one side as she looked up at him. The gesture made him feel as though the ground under his feet were suddenly unsteady. “You’re sure there’s not more to it?”

“Does there have to be more?”

“Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “Yeah, there might have to be.”

There was a long silence during which she stared him down, pinning him in place and not letting him get away. He could feel his heart beating.

“I… wouldn’t mind seeing more of you. Outside of those vile social climbing events.” He looked away, down at his hands. “If that’s objectionable, I can easily make certain that I’m not around when you are.”

“Ezra.” She said his name like she enjoyed it, her voice pitching queerly. “I’d like that very much. The part about you seeing more of me.”

He felt warmth wash through him from head to toe with the way she looked at him. There was no way she knew what she was doing to him. She was a sweet girl, Belle, and-

Before he knew it, she’d launched herself up from the car hood and taken hold of his coat lapels, pulling herself up onto her tiptoes, and she was kissing him. He couldn’t help wrapping an arm around her, bringing her closer. He pressed as much of her against as much of him as he could. Small statured and slender as she was, she was nonetheless delightfully solid in his arms. Real and warm, and kissing him as if she were drowning and he was made of air.

She broke the kiss with a soft sound and he gaped at her. Forward, indeed. And deliciously so. His tongue darted out to taste her on his lips. 

Feeling every ounce of wit fleeing off to do the Shimmy somewhere far back in his senses, he said the only thing that came to mind. “Do we have a deal?”

Belle’s fingers tightened around the wool of his coat. “Oh, we have a deal,” she agreed with a smile, blue eyes glittering in the morning sun as she pulled herself up for another kiss.


End file.
